Monday, February 25, 2013

Playing with color

I am playing with color in THREE fabric projects.  I love playing with color.

I am making a quilt from a kit; this Underground Blues kit includes some rudimentary directions and 31 fat quarter batik fabrics in blues and greens.   This is my first ever kit quilt.  I decided to go with the kit because the fabric was less expensive in the kit.  I also hoped it would give me some choices to play with that I might not choose myself.  If I want a full size quilt for the bed, I will have to augment the kit fabric.  But I may do a diamond set pattern with a border.  I don't like everything set in stone before I start making it;  I like making design decisions along the way.  Otherwise it's no fun.

For me, quilting is all about playing with color.  I don't enjoy fiddly complex piecing.  I keep my utilitarian quilts (for beds and throws) simple so I don't feel bad when they get damaged and I don't cringe when a cat has his way with my quilt.  This design fits the bill since the blocks are just strips.  It's fun to work with. I paired up the fabrics for the blocks and I've been making about four blocks a day.

Pippin always helps when I arrange them on the bed

fabrics paired to sew

My second project is making some cushion covers for a couple of chairs.  John got the chairs from a yard sale for a total of thirty dollars before I even knew him.  Twenty some years ago I made new cushions for both chairs and I am a little tired of the fabric.  The cats have also been a bit hard on the cushion fabric... there is something inviting about sharpening your claws on upholstery fabric.  So I am making simple covers for the chairs.  

I love how these two blue batiks look on the back of this chair.  I am still figuring out exactly how I will make this one.


For this chair, I used a bargello quilt I had kicking around.  It fits perfectly and I like it.




Then there is my ongoing dye experiment project.  Yesterday I tried a simple Shibori inspired technique.  I hand sewed a line of thread and pulled it up tight and applied some dye.

Thread pulled up tight

thread opened up
I added some more lines of stitching last night so I can add some more color today.

1 comment:

Sharon Kwilter said...

I have chairs to recover too. Though, I just don't feel like it, so they got put down in the basement.

That's a nice looking quilt.